Demosthenes, Speeches 27-38

Translated by Douglas M. MacDowell

Publication Year: 2004

This is the eighth volume in the Oratory of Classical Greece. This series presents all of the surviving speeches from the late fifth and fourth centuries BC in new translations prepared by classical scholars who are at the forefront of the discipline. These translations are especially designed for the needs and interests of today’s undergraduates, Greekless scholars in other disciplines, and the general public. Classical oratory is an invaluable resource for the study of ancient Greek life and culture. The speeches offer evidence on Greek moral views, social and economic conditions, political and social ideology, law and legal procedure, and other aspects of Athenian culture that have recently been attracting particular interest: women and family life, slavery, and religion, to name just a few. Demosthenes is regarded as the greatest orator of classical antiquity. This volume contains five speeches written for lawsuits in which Demosthenes sought to recover his inheritance, which he claimed was fraudulently misappropriated and squandered by the trustees of the estate. These speeches shed light on Athenian systems of inheritance, marriage, and dowry. The volume also contains seven speeches illustrating the legal procedure known as paragraphe, or “counter-indictment.” Four of these are for lawsuits involving commercial shipping, a vital aspect of the Athenian economy that was crucial to maintaining the city’s imported food supply. Another concerns the famous Athenian silver mines.

Cover

Title Page, Copyright

Contents

Series Editor's Preface

This is the eighth volume in a series of translations of the Oratory
of Classical Greece. The aim of the series is to make available
primarily for those who do not read Greek up-to-date, accurate, and
readable translations with introductions and explanatory notes of all
the surviving works and major fragments of the Attic orators of the...

Series Introduction

From as early as Homer (and undoubtedly much earlier) the Greeks
placed a high value on effective speaking. Even Achilles, whose greatness
was primarily established on the battlefield, was brought up to be
“a speaker of words and a doer of deeds” (Iliad 9.443); and Athenian
leaders of the sixth and fifth centuries,1 such as Solon, Themistocles...

Introduction to Demosthenes

Demosthenes was born into an old wealthy Athenian family. His
father Demosthenes owned workshops that made swords and furniture.
His maternal grandfather, Gylon, had been exiled from Athens
and lived in the Crimea, where his mother Cleobule was born (perhaps
to a Scythian mother). When Demosthenes was seven, his father...

Introduction to This Volume

The first five speeches in this volume (Orations 27–31) are the earliest
of all Demosthenes’ speeches, written soon after he came of age in
366 BC. They were directed against the men who had been his guardians
since the death of his father, and particularly against his cousin
Aphobus, who was one of the guardians, and Aphobus’ brother-in-law...

27. Against Aphobus I

The dispute between the young Demosthenes and his guardians is
outlined in the introduction to this volume (pages 9–11). This first
speech opens his prosecution of one of the guardians and contains
the principal statement of his case against them. It was delivered in...

28. Against Aphobus II

At the trials of most private cases, each of the two litigants was
allowed to make two speeches, in the order prosecutor, defendant,
prosecutor, defendant. The speeches were timed by the water-clock
(klepsydra), less time being allowed for the second speech than for the
first.1 Probably a speaker would usually extemporize his second speech...

29. Against Aphobus for Phanus

After Aphobus was condemned to pay Demosthenes the huge sum
of 10 talents, he tried to avoid the payment by bringing a case for false
witness (dikē pseudomartyriōn) against one of Demosthenes’ witnesses.
This witness, named Phanus, had given testimony concerning Milyas,
the foreman of the workshop of slaves manufacturing knives which...

30. Against Onetor I

The dispute between Demosthenes and Onetor was an outgrowth
of the dispute between Demosthenes and Aphobus, outlined in the
Introduction to this volume (pp. 9–11). Demosthenes was trying to
recover the sum of 10 talents awarded to him by the court at the trial
of Aphobus, and so he attempted to take possession of Aphobus’ farm...

31. Against Onetor II

For his prosecution of Onetor, as for his prosecution of Aphobus
(see p. 16), Demosthenes has thought it worthwhile to draft some material
for use in his second speech. But this draft is even more incomplete
than the draft of the second speech against Aphobus. It begins
with an announcement that Demosthenes will first present to the jury...

32. Against Zenothemis

The speech Against Zenothemis is written for delivery by a cousin
of Demosthenes named Demon, who was probably a son of the
Demomeles son of Demon mentioned in 27.11 (as shown in the
genealogy on p. 8).1 Probably the text was written by Demosthenes,
though some scholars have suggested that it was written by Demon...

33. Against Apaturius

The speech Against Apaturius is written for delivery by a man whose
name is not mentioned; I therefore call him simply the speaker. He
says that he used to travel as a merchant for many years (33.4 –5). The
speaker is therefore not Demosthenes himself, and since the style
of the speech is plainer and more matter-of-fact than Demosthenes'...

34. Against Phormion

The speech Against Phormion concerns a dispute between two grain-merchants
named Chrysippus and Phormion. Neither is otherwise
known. (This Phormion is not to be identified with the one in Oration
36.) Several passages of the speech imply that they are not Athenian
citizens; notice especially “we . . . have been coming to your port...

35. Against Lacritus

Lacritus originally came from Phaselis in Asia Minor, but at the
time of this oration he was living in Athens, where he must have been
registered as a metic (resident alien). He was a rhetorician; he had been
a pupil of Isocrates and taught rhetoric himself (35.15, 35.41). Little else...

36. For Phormion

Seven speeches in the Demosthenic corpus (Orations 45, 46, 49,
50, 52, 53, and the main part of 59) are composed for delivery by Apollodorus
son of Pasion, and most or all of them are now generally believed
to have been written by him. The speech For Phormion, on the...

37. Against Pantaenetus

The speech Against Pantaenetus is written for delivery by a man
named Nicobulus. Neither Nicobulus nor Pantaenetus is otherwise
known, but it appears from the speech that both were Athenian citizens,
not metics. The original agreement between them was made in
the spring of 347 bc (37.6), after which Nicobulus went off on a trading...

38. Against Nausimachus and Xenopeithes

Some passages of Against Nausimachus and Xenopeithes are almost
identical with passages of Against Pantaenetus: 38.1 with 37.1, and 38.21–
22 with 37.58 – 60. That makes it likely that this speech was written by
Demosthenes around the same time as that one, about 346 BC, and he
saved himself a little trouble by using some of the same material in...

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